Part I
***
[Again.]
[Again].
I’m shitting my brains out. On a toilet, fortunately.
I actually almost laugh because it’s so intense the way my colon is spasming, but then a sneezing fit takes hold of me. I put my tongue to the roof of my mouth to try and stop, pouring from the eyes and nose and feeling as if I’m about to break a rib. The sneezing subsides, and the muscles in my torso get a chance to relax before a wave of nausea makes them tense up again.
The flu-like chills rushing up within me begin to converge in a dissociating head rush. Converging, compressing into vibration, sound—a long, drawling buzz that opens up into a melody, both ancient and familiar, and sends fire ants crawling across my skin . . . some song I can’t quite remember . . .
“And. If. You. Feeeeeeeeel that you caaan't go ooon . . .”
In my head with black images of rot and death, enemies and loved ones from my past are harassing me. They grab me by the head and press their suddenly corpse-like faces into mine and scream, then burst into laughter at my reaction. Their bodies darken and distort, stretching upward until they stand fifty feet tall—formless demons jeering, saying—
Hey, you okay in there, buddy?
The sudden contraction of my esophagus brings me back to the physical, as vomit finally joins the party.
“Jesus!” the man at the door yells.
There’re worse things, but precipitated withdrawal is still bad enough to put real Pavlovian fear into you. Any normal person who experienced it would quickly decide once is enough. But addicts, and junkies especially, are relatively abnormal, in that they tend to take illogical risks with things such as their health and reputation.
Long story short, I even suck at doing drugs properly.
Stumbling out of the gas-station bathroom, visibly sick and still hearing Led Zeppelin, I run into two gorgeous women. As they’re walking out the door, one of them looks my way and then turns back to her friend to say something and laugh. I’m doing nothing to mask my misery, so I can’t say I blame her. A man without his pride is, everyone knows, hilarious.
The other one looks at me, neither frowning nor smiling. She just stares from behind her white sunglasses, wrapped from shoulder to ankle in a white dress that she’s wearing like a sundress. Her sandy-blonde hair is wet, the skin around her cheeks and on her shoulders a little red. Her bare feet are covered in sand. She’s fresh from the beach, looking like a kind of runaway bride.
The girl in white and I share a gaze, and I feel . . .
I feel an awful bubbling in my gut. I also hear it, and probably so do the two girls. I wave a hand to dismiss myself, then turn away from the Florida warmth and sunshine just out of reach, back into the cold stink of the bathroom.
America, they say, has been dealing with an epidemic of opioid addiction. If that’s true, then chances are you’ve heard some of this kind of bullshit before, so I’ll try not to whine so much.
Or at least try not to sound like I’m whining so much.
I’ve been an addict almost my entire adult life. My plan for the past few days has been to get clean. For the last time. And on my own, this time.
My previous bouts with sobriety have always been forced upon me by circumstance. There was always someone else with a vision of what my life should be like. In the depths of my escapism, I would dream, but I had no vision. I had no plan. Now I have a list.
There are bad drugs, the ones that set me on an indefinite retreat—making camp for a few hours here and there to get as fucked up as possible before pulling back again. Swift, self-gratifying hit-and-run operations being played against vague ideas of what my life could be. The existential angst game.
The bad drugs list contains some illicit substances, but the majority of them are widely prescribed.
My list of good or okay drugs is almost entirely made up of illegal chemicals—most psychedelics, for instance. I’m no expert, but I do have a long history of enthusiastic experimentation. If someone wanted to ask my humble opinion, I’d tell that person that the only difference between passing a prescription slip to the pharmacist in the lab coat and handing a wad of cash to some dude in a cigarette-burned hoodie is a matter of permission; that in the end, both a doctor’s word and a dealer’s are all but equal in their lack of utility when compared to your own subjective experience; that no two central nervous systems are identical.
But don’t take my word for it.
I know there’s not a single addiction specialist or drug counselor out there that would agree with me. A lot of other addicts wouldn't, either, which is fine. I’m not trying to sell anything. I don’t have any answers. This is all about me. Even that cult Narcotics Anonymous preaches that you be selfish in your recovery. Whatever methods we use to get clean or relatively clean are secondary to the key we have to find within: A desire to quit for ourselves. I finally found mine, ten years later.
Ten years after I offered a bug some real estate in my brain. I figured I could evict him whenever. A cliché.
Now for the cliché of being in recovery. Day to day, as they say, I’ll have to contend with sobriety. Relative sobriety, anyway.
Of course.
[Of course], right now my problem has gone beyond my usual day-to-day cravings as an addict, which is why I head to Mike’s house after leaving the gas station and then text him when I pull up. He comes out, lighting a Newport, his mom shouting after him in her Filipino accent.
“Okay, Mom!” He shuts the door. “Alex—damn. Bro, you look like shit.”
“Thanks. Can I get that now?”
“Yeah. Where you gonna do it, your car?”
“Wherever. Yeah.”
Because he knows I’ll be coming into some money soon, but mainly because we've known each other so long, he fronts me a fat little bag of powder. It has to be fat, or it wouldn’t work right now. It probably wouldn’t work no matter what if I had taken a lot of sub, but I hadn’t.
To us, sub is both a noun and a verb referring to the chemical buprenorphine, both with and without naloxone—which, despite what some people say, makes no significant difference whatsoever. Both forms are usually prescribed to help people kick worse opioids.
Mike and I get in my car for the main event, and you can guess what the next few moments are like. I don’t much care for describing the act itself.
I put away my stuff and ritually swab the spot on my arm with alcohol again. I usually get at least thirty seconds of warmth and maybe even bliss, followed by fifteen minutes of a lesser joy, and then a contented homeostasis for a varying number of hours. With the sub still in my system, it's straight to phase three.
“I never get used to seeing that,” Mike says. He doesn’t get down the same way. He prefers absorbing chemicals through the mucus membranes in his nose.
“Fuck, man. I was dying.”
“I thought you were gonna quit.” He says it with a smile. It’s a statement we’ve probably made to each other a hundred times.
“You know that shit’s fucking unbearable. I’ll quit tomorrow.”
Mike laughs, blowing a menthol cloud over my dashboard. “Why’d you sub?”
“Because I had it. Fuck. I’m still nauseous.”
“Some weed might help. Let’s smoke and get some food.”
“You know I’m broke.”
“Come on, I got you. I’ll drive.”
Weed doesn’t help. It never does when I’m dependent on narcotics, unless I’m detoxing. I think. It’s been years this time.
On the way there, Mike asks me twice to take the wheel while he snorts some powder.
Our tolerances for opioids are great, but now Mike is out of it, swerving. By the time we finally pull up to the drive-thru, I know he’s on more than just the normal heroin. A woman’s voice greets us through the speaker, but Mike is silent.
“Hello? You can go ahead when you’re ready.”
I give Mike’s shoulder a shove. “Mike? Mike.”
“Uhn?”
“Hello? Are you ready to order?”
“Yeah,” Mike says, eyes closed.
“. . . Okay, what would you like?”
“Okay . . .” And then his chin hits his chest.
“Jesus Christ, man. I can’t believe you drove us here.” I lean over so the drive-thru woman can hear me. “One sec, please!”
“Of course. Take your time.” Sarcastic static. The other cars hear it, too, is how it feels.
It’s far from the first time I’ve seen Mike like this, but it’s the first time it’s ever happened at a drive-thru. We’re damn lucky that his foot has somehow stayed on the brake, and so are all the nearby pedestrians. I put the car into park.
“Mike!”
No response. There’s a decent line forming behind us.
I shake Mike some more and then check his pulse, just to be sure. “Mike. We gotta move.”
“Sir, if you aren’t going to order anything, you need to leave.”
“Give me a minute! My friend’s . . . a narcoleptic.”
I’m trying to drag Mike over to my side, but it’s not working. I start to think I’m going to have to get out and go around to his door to push him, but then a neuron fires from somewhere behind his glazed eyes, and he lets his torso fall toward me. I climb over and shove the rest of him into the passenger seat, hearing yells of outrage and confusion from a car behind us.
When we pass the window, the lady gives us a “What the fuck?” kind of look, so I give her one back. Is this not Florida? Can’t be the first narcoleptic driver she’s had.
“What about the food?” Mike says into the upholstery.
“Yeah, you kinda already screwed yourself there. We’ll go someplace else. I’ll pass out at this one and it’ll be your turn.”
“Huh?”
We end up getting some dog-meat taquitos from a gas station. There’s two for me and two for Mike. I’m on my second one when Mike takes a lazy bite out of his first and holds it in his open mouth, not chewing. Whatever. Then I hear a small thud as his taquitos hit the floorboard.
I go back in the store to get him an energy drink.
Driving back to his house, I’m shaking and shoving him almost the entire time, until he finally chews his food and drinks the blend of guarana extract, sugar, and taurine—although I might be wasting my time. At this point, maybe his parents wouldn’t say a thing at seeing him passed out with taquito in his mouth.
By the time we get there, he’s regained himself enough, and we sit on a bench in his front yard. He lights up another Newport and asks me what happened at the drive-thru, so I tell him. It’s far from our first discussion about things we did while high as shit.
Our most infamous moment was the time the CEO of this company we were working for came to our little piss-ant branch. Imagine, this CEO is giving a speech to a room of maybe thirty people. He’s trying to squeeze some laughter out of a bunch of disenchanted and world-weary call-center workers, and it’s actually working. The whole room is showing him love.
Almost.
About to end strong with his anecdote, the CEO says something like, “And you know what I told him?”
“ORGH,” Mike snores in reply, face down in a puddle of his own drool.
“Mike!” our manager shouts, horrified.
Mike sits up, squinting around at the room.
I’m there, waiting, praying for the look of realization to come across Mike’s face—for him to recognize where he is and that he’s about to lose his job. But Mike just keeps squinting around with his mouth open, faded beyond hope.
“Hey, son,” the surprisingly charismatic CEO says to Mike. “Out partying last night, huh?” He’s trying to make light of the situation, and all Mike has to do is agree. The whole thing’s almost totally understandable—because we’d all had that holiday night off.
Instead, Mike says, as if through a mouthful of mashed potatoes and oxycodone, “I hadda work late laz night.”
And he goes back to sleep.
They ended up asking me to drive him home, then asked me about my pupils. When my response apparently failed to show proper concern, they let me call a cab for us both.
A thousand stories like these—a source of great contemplation and humility when we’re alone, but they’re only hilarious when we’re telling them to each other.
“So, you’re really gonna try and quit after today?” Mike sends another cloud of smoke sailing over the lawn, among the loquat trees, the mango. Summer’s over and the fruit is all gone.
“Yeah, I’m gonna quit. I have to.” I know he probably doesn’t believe me, and for good reason: We both know the deal too well. We’re veterans of the real drug war. The only one that’s real to us.
“And you said you’re getting that money next week?”
“Yeah, why?”
He digs around in his pocket and comes out with a folded-up receipt. “Here. Some bars. You can pay me back later.”
“That’s why you were so faded at the drive-thru. Thanks, though. I really appreciate it.”
Bars, rectangular pills containing benzodiazepine, are an invaluable tool for someone in my position. People like Mike would probably overdo it and waste them, but I never found them to be very recreational. For me, bars are in a gray area between good and bad: They’re as addictive and insidious as any opioid, but I also don’t enjoy them that much. And they’re useful in my current predicament.
“I hope you go through with it,” Mike says. “After all that . . .”
“You should quit with me. You don’t need some [profound] reason.”
“Yeah . . .”
I know Mike’s addiction is partially tied to the fact that it’s also how he makes money. He has little incentive to quit: Living at home rent-free drastically cuts his overhead, leaving him with a greater amount of product he can use himself. But it’s always good to give encouragement, even if it’s falling on deaf ears, and even if it’s cheesy.
Even if it’s a [lie].
“You know, one day things will be different. And they’ll stay that way.”
Mike takes a long drag and then releases it to the wind again. “Yeah . . . for sure.”
***
“Watch the fucking cable, will ya!?”
. . .?
“Alright now, bring the thing inside. Not that way! The door around the corner! Damn new kid.”
A carpet cleaning crew entering the hotel is what wakes me from my sleep in the backseat of my car, interrupting a dream about yesterday. About the Girl in White.
Detoxing usually brings strangely vivid, often mundanely realistic dreams—if you can sleep, that is. But I haven’t even truly started coming off yet.
I still feel relatively fine, but knowing what’s ahead is already sapping my motivation to get moving. I know today’s not going to be so bad, but that by tonight I’ll be twisting and turning, sneezing and yawning. And by tomorrow I’ll be scrounging around my car, looking for any sort of leftover relief I can find—an errant piece of sub, or a used cotton filter.
Probably the worst part is that for the week or two—even longer with certain opioids—that it lasts, there’s no rest or reprieve. Day or night, standing, sitting, or lying down—it’s a constant physical and mental state of something you want to call agony.
Then you remember a story you once heard. Your grandfather was starved and beaten, tied to a tree by the Japanese during the war. He was living in the Philippines during the occupation, with your grandmother, your father—who was the oldest child—and his siblings, some of whom didn’t live through the experience.
You tell yourself to suck it up, this thing. What even is an addiction compared to actual war?
And then a minute later it’s “Oh, the agony” again. Unless you have certain drugs to help you through. If not, you just grit your teeth and writhe around as the hours become days.
I know I deserve no pity, nor do I want any. I think most addicts would agree with me there—even the ones that come to you begging for change, maybe carrying around a gas can and a story about needing to get wherever for whatever reason.
I just want, and maybe even have a sort of responsibility, to have the experience represented to some degree. Call it journalistic integrity.
I climb over to the driver’s seat and start my car. It’s time to go find something to eat while I still feel like eating, with the little bit of cash I still have.
***
The second day, there are no carpet cleaners. I wake up far before sunrise and take another bar. I would love to take two, but my supply is already too low. I’m hoping Mike might need a ride to go get more since he doesn’t like driving his car to every deal. Switching cars is a common tactic for criminals of all kinds.
I sit up, peeling my sweat-covered back from the leather seat. I got too hot wearing my shirt. Winter would have been a nicer time to detox, but because I’ll have money in the bank soon, I can’t afford to wait.
And if the money does seem to come too soon, and I’m feeling tempted, I’ll just run myself out of options again. And again. Until . . .
I do actually have plans for the future. Or dreams, whatever. I’m playing things pretty loose, but I truly do want to be clean from this shit.
[ . . . ]
***
I did end up scrounging around my car yesterday. I found nothing.
Had to change hotels. Hotel parking lots, anyway. Think the manager or someone was checking out my car.
I’m not really eating. No appetite. And I didn’t buy any loperamide—itself an opioid, abusable in dangerous, cardiotoxic quantities. It’s just easier not worrying about gas station bathrooms too much, and being seen walking to and from my car.
Obviously I’m still drinking water. I bought a few gallons in advance for this, probably much more than the Japanese gave my grandfather in a week.
I have big plans.
Fuck. Another bar, then. And the last of the weed Mike gave me.
***
The same people have seen me walking around too much. Gas is low. Whatever.
What-the-fuck-ever.
Terrible gears turning.
I’m doing alright. How long has it been?
Fuck.
Fuck.
Maybe . . .
Trying not to text Mike. Bothered him enough yesterday.
Big plans.
I’m checking out for a while.
***
[Writhe. Hopeless. Weak.]
I need sleep.
I’m okay.
[Hate. Hate. Suffer, always, friend. Always, your friend.]
My heart is beating like a bass drum, reverberating through my skull, vibrating the connective tissues to my brain.
[Hahaha. You’re cute. He’s dead.]
Fuck me. Fuck you.
[Pick your dead fruit.]
Another bar. My last.
***
[It was never going to work.]
I hate . . . hate . . .
[I know.]
Weak. Hopeless.
[Rejoice.]
Dad . . .
[It’s fine.]
Phone’s dead.
[. . .]
Out of gas.
[ . . .?]
I could . . .
[. . .] . . .
No.
[. . .]334Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnZOeHULjb1
[. . .]334Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHZxha1LMV4
***
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